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We Christians are deployed to love; serious love that gives away and unexpected love that gives back.
For us here in Neighborhood Ministries, the best time of the year to welcome kids to the love of God is Kids Club.
Monday we begin the third Kids Club of the summer; the biggest one (500 kids and more than 200 leaders) which is ours, here in Phoenix. Last week was the Kids Club in Chinle on the Navajo Nation, the week before was the Kids Club in Albuquerque. All of these follow the same tested way in which Kids Club has been happening here for the past 22 years and all are using The Jesus Encounter curriculum. So, it makes sense to me to take a minute and discover how we are encountering Jesus so far in all this love. And to anticipate with you what the next two weeks might look like.
Here are a few images …
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Though young, they are already wounded healers purposely taking on the pain of a
child; everywhere, developing leaders are setting the bar high for youth who are
just beginning to dream for themselves that they can make a difference in their
own communities.
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Race and culture conversations come spontaneously from those isolated from
diversity; and then getting the privilege to see this exchange in action, like
seeing Spanish speakers learn to sing in Navajo.
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Many, many children taking the hand offered with abandon, finding that
compassionate love was attached.
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Long talks into the night speak out what has been trapped inside; there are
onlookers hopeful for their turn. Vulnerability becomes attractive.
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Exhausted from too little sleep and long days, from difficulties, from running a
program with relentless expectations; but the exhaustion identifies us to each
other and to the desire to be in mission together.
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Working alongside old team members and finding that this program naturally
recruits new ones reminds us that God hasn’t left us alone.
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Believing again in the stories from the Bible and corporately acting on what
they inspire makes everything we teach come alive.
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Buses and vans sent out to look for “lost” kids and longing for more to come
while rounding up real “lost sheep”, internalizing a moment with the metaphor
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Surprise that there is the strength to recognize beauty in all of its
revelations.
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Adjusting to the way it is when we ask God for everything we need.
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Teaching each other to celebrate the “good race”.
Kids Club is about the choice we all make to enter in to what God is about to do. It’s been that way for years. And when it’s over, we try to describe what just happened. We can only get close enough usually to know how it felt to be in all that love. It can be hard to put into words.
I hope you will join us in your own way … by reading these emails, by praying for us, by sending whatever help you can rally on our behalf. You are our team. And we need you. I’ll continue to keep you posted.
Love, kit
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